


we are about as subtle as an earthquake

by spiraetspera



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Father issues, Gen, Mentions of childhood abuse, Orphanage, all three lehnsherr kid on the run, beginning of the x-men era, erik cannot deal with fatherhood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:50:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1814182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiraetspera/pseuds/spiraetspera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Having children means making amends, Erik."</p><p> </p><p>Post DoFP, each chapter concentrating on the three long lost Lehnsherr children: Maximoff twins and Lorna Dane. It starts out slowly; and with the creation of an Anti-Mutant association. Xavier recruits his first pupils, restarts the school and meanwhile there is a chaotic search for not only Magneto but his children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pietro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [majawek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/majawek/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [we are about as subtle as an earthquake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4183734) by [JulinaPallod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulinaPallod/pseuds/JulinaPallod)



> Next chapter will be posted on Monday. Hope you will enjoy reading this! :)

_"I let you in like a bullet to my brain / I let you stay”_

wakey wakey – **take it like a man**

 

 

i.

Your birth certificate says that you have been born in February, nineteen fifty-five, Poland. Your mother’s maiden name is Magda Eisenhardt, your father’s name is altogether unknown.

What the piece of paper doesn’t say, is that your sister is only three minutes older than you, and that your mother makes it to America just to put you both in the hands and care of a woman named Marya Maximoff. Your mother makes it to America only to die: slowly and _alone_.

It does not say that you can easily run around the district twice, within half an hour, at age two, and it does not mention that when your sister is hungry or tired she sets thing on fire or makes them disappear.

At the right edge of the paper there is a black and white picture. Its lack of color conceals the fact that your hair has always been gray, like an old man’s.

The certificate is a piece of a junk; a lie, and that’s what you hate the most – it’s a piece of normality in a life that is far from ordinary.

 

 

ii.

You love Marya; and so for her and Wanda’s sake you bear through the sluggish pace of high-school. You barely finish Junior year in your fifth school, but your grades are nice. Still, both groups -peers and teachers- are terrible: they hate you, and the feeling is indeed, mutual.

Nothing new under the sun.

All reviews and remarks are the same: too arrogant, too spoiled, too _impatient_ – and you smile and snarl. You have won this race a long time ago and they have not even realized that it _is_ one.

Still, you try to please, to adjust. You’ve even went so far to change your name: Pietro is apparently too hard for your generally degenerate classmates, so you are Peter for them, for Marya and her husband. You are Peter for Marya’s little child, Susan. For everyone but Wanda.

Nothing new under the sun.

(it will be always like this, but you don’t know it yet: _Everyone, but Wanda._ )

 

 

iii.

For the first time, everything is happening too fast, even for you.

Your break in and out of Pentagon and watch the world burn as they find a name for the likes of you and Wanda.

_Mutants._

You can feel that Marya practically burns holes in your head with her gaze, and yet all you think of is,

_How will I explain this to Wanda?_

and,

_Great job Pietro. You let loose a mass-murderer mutant maniac._

and also,

_That helmet is fucking ridiculous._

Wanda comes back from her school trip which you very shrewdly skipped, and is not angry but sad as you confess.

Which adds to the guilt. You can bear it though: it’s a feeling that grew with you.

In a way, guilt is the sinew of your existence.

 

 

iv.

Marya tries to protect you from the news, to create a vast but thick layer of shield around you both; you cannot go anywhere alone and you cannot watch TV, unless she is there. But you cannot escape hate and mass-hysteria easily.

There are protests and new clubs and nasty, vulgar graffities all around the world just to cherish the very existence of mutanthood. In the last week of August, your sister smuggles home a poster one day; which says,

JOIN MUTANT CONTROL AGENCY, BE A PURIFIER!

The background is horrid, all vivid red and loud yellow, it makes both of you sick at the stomach and you say,

_Burn it, Wanda._

She blinks. The paper catches fire.

 

 

v.

It happens like this. In September, you both start Senior year.

In September, TV announces that they are searching for a girl named Lorna Dane, who tore apart a plane with a flicker of her mind, with her dangerous, unpredictable and unpermitted mutant powers.

At least, that is what Henry Gyrich, the assholest of all with the most money says, live on TV. He also kindly orders Lorna Dane to give up herself in the name of social justice.

Fucker.

What you find even more suprising, but not unpleasantly so, is that Charles Xavier (luckily well-washed, shaven and drug-free, with a better fashion sense and no sunglasses), Doctor of Genetics, head and representative of the Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters has a whole retortion speech ready and fired, on the very next day, and he also calls Gyrich a liar. Subtly, as he would.

You are a bit suspicious of this new Xavier, but Wanda is into it.

The third day, there is a fee on Lorna Dane’s head, the "THOUSAND DOLLARS IF ALIVE" under her photograph is big and atrocious.

She is thirteen years old, five years younger than them.

Wanda cries for the first time in years and you start dreaming of not being able to run.

 

 

vi.

”Pietro!”

Someone is running down the stairs.

You sleep there nowadays, but this time, fatigue found you sudden, next to the couch, so you are stretched out on the floor.

When you open your eyes, Marya already has her arms around your shoulders, half-shaking, half-embrancing them.

You will remember her words for the rest of your lives.

”My love, you have to run.” her words are very soft, but she is crying.

”Mum, I…” Glasses shatter and someone swears.

Running comes to you as a reflex. You are out of the house with Wanda in your arms way before the MCA begins to search the house.

_(You have won this race too, but your heels and eyes are strangely burning.)_

It will take a year to sinkthat Marya called you Pietro.


	2. Wanda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am actually able to update two days before, and hopefully, if all ends well, I can update on Monday too. :) Also, thank you so very much for the kudos and comments and generally, just taking time to read :) Here, have this chapter, now from Wanda's view. Lorna is up next!

_“A Witch is born out of the true hungers of her time.”_

Ray Bradbury – **Long After Midnight**

 

 

vii.

”Xavier will look for us” you say to convince your brother not to run so carelessly.

The Control Agency can track you down easily once you use the powers. You figure that out on the second day, after Pietro runs more than two hundred miles. Purifiers in black masks are already waiting for you in Somerset.

So you both agree to switch speed to safety, and decide to take the bus to Philadelphia, using only a sad smile and great deal of stolen money.

”Please, I know it’s hard. But let’s wait.”

It’s the fourth day, and there is no sign that anyone would come or care.

 

 

viii.

There is a picture of your mother in your room, placed carefully on the desk, next to the newest Queen album and an Arthur Miller drama. The photo is the one thing you wish you could have brought with you.

Magda is very young, around twenty, and pregnant. She has a smile which reminds you of Pietro, but she passed her dark and wavy hair, heart-shaped face and snubby nose on to you.

The shape of your eyes though, the intense, pensive gaze in them, are not hers.

You stare at your reflection in the tiny and cheap motel mirror, and wonder if you’d recognize your father _just_ by his eyes.

 

 

ix.

You watch TV every night at a cramped bar next door where Pietro buys himself a beer, then smirks and orders you a Pepsi Light. You shoot your tongue out and try to kick his shins, but end up aimlessly kicking the air.

It’s your sixth day in sweet Philadelphia, almost eight o’clock.

The residents of the pub are almost the same: The Guy With Too Much Oil in his hair, a woman who looks like Kermit the Frog, a man smoking twenty-four per seven with her mute girlfriend and the bartender who drinks a pint of scotch whenever someone orders.

And you, _obviously_ , teenagers stuck in the same place, same clothes, waiting for a shitty miracle to happen.

 _I am getting cynical_ , _aren't I?_   you think and take a sip from the beer.

You listen to Mahalia Jackson deep, soothing voice in the background, up until Too Much Oil burps out,

”Would you mind? Gyrich is talking.”

G r e a t.

You exchange a look with Pietro. He asks for another beer.

The forenamed man appears on the screen, all smug and rich, and you know instantly your brother has the same thought: just how utterly satisfying it would be to break this man’s, this nobody’s nose so he would bleed all across his expensive tie and shirt.

_”... proud to announce that MCA will now continue its job under governmental care and funds.”_

”Waitwhathow?” gapes Pietro, no longer caring to order. You are, too, speechless to comment.

_”After introducing our basic policy to Secretary of Defense, Paul Hills; we are fairly certain that within this month or the next, the leader of Mutant Terrorist Organization, namely Erik Lehnsherr, alias Magneto…”_

Gyrich’s mouth twitches and the reporters are laughing in the background at the mention of the name.

"What are you laughing at, assheads?"

Both Pietro and the bartender stare at you, and you realize you have said the insult out loud.

_”… our associates and coworkers are currently in search of Lehnsherr and his group. It is also significant to mention, that a week ago our intels informed us that Lehnsherr has gotten out with the help of his eighteen-year old son and that…”_

Gray hair and a cheeky smile appears on TV. Your brother is onscreen.

You both freeze.

Then dark, thick hair and sharp eyes floats in. You are also onscreen.

_”The twins have been under the care of the Maximoff family, and have an impressive list of former pecuniary offences and nonfinished legal procedures…”_

You feel as is they had snuffed all the air out of the room and your lungs.

 _Liarsliarsliarsliarsliars_ , a voice chants in your head. One second more of this, and you might go insane.

You touch your brother’s arm.

”Pietro” you breathe, but he is very still, and this frightens you more than anything in your entire life. ”Come on, come, come.”

The voice of Gyrich continues, but no one in the room is looking at the TV anymore, just the two of you.

You are as petrified as them, so you remain there, tugging at your brother’s stupid silver jacket, wishing you had the nerve to slap him.

Pietro is the only one now staring, glued to the telly. _He is desperate_ , you realize, and you feel that familiar pinch of sorrow in your heart and stomach.

_”… we want to warn you; do not approach these individuals without calling a Purifier or requesting semi-military help. His youngest, Lorna Dane, blew up a plane just a month ago which we presumed to have been the retaliation for the unsuccessful assassination atte..”_

The TV explodes suddenly, followed by the tables catching fire and the alcoholics beverages turning crimson red and turning into apple-sized rubies.

The air is thick with the power you exude, and you are drunk on it.

It’s Pietro’s turn to grab your shoulders-

”Shoot the witch!” Kermit shrieks from behind. You snap your fingers and the lights go out. Then Pietro has you in his arms, as always. ”They’ll kill us!”

In the corner of your eyes, you spot the mute girlfriend catching her man’s arms as he tries to free his gun from its case. You can’t read her lips, because the air and colors and the place around you merge into unanimous mass.

 

 

x.

”No one hears you if you shout this fast, Pietro.”

 

 

xi.

You make it to Newark, where your brother is shot through his right leg.

MCA would not have caught you, were it not for you, your panic and a blank cartridge going off.

Here is the thing.

The very first thing Pietro tells you at age six is that no one can stop him if he is running.

No one.

Nothing.

Nyet, non, nada.

No water, no walls, no bullets – he is too fast for any of that shit.

You believe him then, because you are children; and you believe it all through your youth, because his nature does not permit him to lie to you – you know this in your bones.

And you know this, at age eighteen, because you see it with your own eyes; eyes that are so very much alike your father’s.

”Stop” you shriek, because you hear a gun going off on the right and it is so, so close you are afraid it hit either Pietro or you, unknowingly.

He does stops, and _this_ time, the bullet truly  _meets_ the flesh, and you have never heard a sound so heartrending as your brother’s scream.

He stoops, blood staining the autumn ground under him.

”NO!”

”I got them, Philip!” someone yells and there is an answer which you are uncapable of making out: animals sound the same to you.

You look around, feeling helpless and hate it.

It’s the middle of the night, almost the border of the district, a no name suburban area.

Four men in horrible leather jackets are running towards you, but you look for the sniper that shot Pietro.

Someone moves on the roof and you bellow, trying to light him up so he would burn with pain too.

It doesn’t work; and you light the house on fire instead.

The sniper shouts though, something to…

You?

”RUN!”

The sniper sounds female.

”Wanda” it's Pietro, whispering; he looks too tired to scream anymore. ”Just...”

”Not a chance” you say, kneeling next to him. Your hands hover over the wound, and he hisses. The bullet is still in him; imbedded. ”You go, I go.”

The four men in the horrible outfit reach them.

When you look up, a gun is pressed to your forehead. It’s the smoking man from Philadelphia. He grins as you spit on his shoes.

”Hey, witchy bitch.” the other three laugh, and now, this close you can make up the enormous, bleach-white letter P tattooed on their leather uniform. Creepy. ”Let’s play a game where we wait for you brother to bleed out, and then I might send you after him.”

You feel very tired as Pietro hands grab yours and you squeeze them gently.

_Yes, I see it too._

A silhouette of a girl approaches and the guns in the Purifiers’ hands start to melt and crackle. And you find yourself laughing, because when faced with a terrible situation you can do so much with your sanity.

”What the fuck…”

”Hello” says Lorna Dane, now fully distinguishable. She was the one on the roof, you recognize her voice. She looks and smells like a homeless drug addict. The auburn glow of her hair is pretty much faded, the roots of it are bright green, matching her eyes. ”You have twenty-five seconds to run away or I will bury you beneath your cars.”

”Like hell you will,” snaps Smoking Man, but takes a step aside from both of you. It's very comical. You decide to help and make a complicated abrakadabra motion with your hands, and two of the four start to sprint.

Pietro chuckles loudly.

”Twenty-five,” counts Lorna. She sounds adamant and vicious; her nature evidently not matching her adolescent, lithe appearance at all.

Smoking man swears.

”Twenty-four…” The remaining Purifiers shrewdly choose not to tempt fate, and escape after the others.

”Thank you” you manage to say once they disappear.

”The sniper…” Pietro grits through his teeth. Lorna positions herself near his legs, doesn’t look up as she answers.

”Already taken care of.”

”Oh” you say. Silence. ”I owe you one.”

”I didn’t know where he was until you decided to burn the building down. So it was teamwork, I guess.” Your head swarms. Her profile is just like Pietro’s. ”I can get the bullet out.”

”Thanks” says Pietro, then cracks the most shit-eating grin. ”By the way: welcome to the family, Lorna Green.”

”Dane.”

”Whatever.”


	3. Lorna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a hiatus that was way too long, I am back continuing and hopefully finishing the story. Special thanks and very special apaologies to JulinaPallod, who started to translate my work to Russian and hopes to finish the translation if I finish the story. Thank You for your patience.
> 
> Here is Lorna Dane, here is to Lorna Dane!

 

i.

  
It is no suprise that the media lies.

 

Truth is: at age thirteen, you are not capable of tearing a plane apart.

  
But you could do it, just once, ripping metal as easily as falling asleep. All you needed was some terror; fear so deep that you still feel sick when you think about it.

  
You were six then, and the media is seven years too late.

 

ii.

  
Arthur Dane knows all about you mother's pregnancy when he marries her. They meet in Salt Lake City, in the March of nineteen-sixty, and sometimes in the following three months, your mother moves to California with him.

  
Life seems good. Dane calles her "Amazing Anna" because she is in great pain during pregnancy

  
_(And she is so very silent about it._

_You are poisoning her body after all. It's your blood; your father's blood that causes all the trouble._

_You don't know it yet, but it will always be like this.)_

  
, and there is even greater pain when she bears you.

  
_(Amazing Anna is crying openly - with joy)_

  
She barely makes it.

 

iii.

  
It goes like this. Arthur Dane is violent -

 

No.

  
There is always a cause. Human nature can so very easily be reduced to physics. Thus for every consequence, there is a cause.

 

_Thesis, antithesis, synthesis._

  
Dane, an otherwise jovial man, despises drama. He likes flying, has a soft spot for whiskey and women. He hates drama, but you are a constant reminder of your mother's not-so-amazing past and not-so-modest desires, and that is something a proud, military veteran cannot forgive or forget. Not to you, to your mother, not to himself.

  
In this set-up you are the cause, violence is the consequence, and the _synthesis_ -

  
A plane which holds almost a hundred people in it - wait, no. No, that's the setting.

 

The setting.

  
A non-retour, ninety minutes flight to San Francisco. They serve you orange juice in a plastic glass.

  
The color of the drink amazes your young eyes and helps to keep out the constant bickering and the buzzing in your brain. Your senses are sharp in this plane. And though you cannot see it, you know the position and place of every screw and clam and bolt.

  
A barbed sound cuts through the air, followed by a painful and familiar gasp. That's what six year old Lorna Dane perceives -

 

Arthur Dane standing up to dragging his wife to the very back of the aircraft in order to teach her a lesson.

  
_The antithesis_. Fueled by self-pity and some alcohol.

  
You cry out, but no one looks up.

  
But everyone - the three of you, and ninety-four others- falls into metal shreds and metal blood and metal flesh and screams, all in flames, burning.

  
_Synthesis_ , you think.

 

iv.

  
They call you a miracle and the accident an engine failure caused by technical factors.

  
And still, the miracle you performed gives you a free ticket to the hospital where they treat you like porcelain, and then an orphanage near San Diego where they treat you like shit. Nothing new. The food is a bit worse, the beds smell of piss, but at least the people there don't see you as a victim.

  
You decide to let yourself grow then. Slowly but surely, on three days old meals and geology books and the knowledge that you will be free soon.

  
It is nineteen seventy-three and a man - a monster, apprarently - named Erik Lenshserr escapes from the Pentagon.

 

v.

  
"No need to fear, we just want to ask some simple questions Mrs. Etham."

  
The headmistress glances at you one last time on the way out, leaving you with the two agents trying to look like police officers. But you are familiar with both police and emergency, and these people are _soldiers_.

  
"Lorna, yeah?" asks the one on the right with a jovial face and graying hair. The other one sits next to her on the bed before she could reply or object. This man does not smile at all.

  
When she continues to stare, the gray one coughs and sits on her other side.

  
_This is very awkward_ , you think and unconsciously touch your hair, freshly dyed and rich brown.

  
"We just want to ask some questions, dear."

  
The rude one reaches for a wallet in his pocket and you can see a flash of steel and know not so deep down that the semi-automatic is made of exactly a thousand and five grams of solid metal. It is loaded and recoil-operated; a twenty-two, perhaps. There is an all-too familiar buzz in your head, weighing on the very back of your brain.

  
"Do you know this man?"

  
Aware that both men are glued on your face, your stare at the picture presented.

  
"No." A _lie_. Everyone knows this face, this man; Magneto. You think of terrible wonders, leaders long or almost dead.

 

You also think, _this cannot happen to me._

  
The photo is well-worn, taken maybe in the times of custody, but its artificiality does not lessen the ferocity in Erik Lehnsherr's eyes. He is handsome enough, you note, and were it note for all that anger and aptitude for mass murder, he would have the world at his feet. Of that, you are sure.

  
"Miss Dane?" You look up into the dead, dead eyes of the smiling, graying man. "Are you sure?"

  
"Yep."

  
"Do you mind coming with us? Just formalities."

  
Liars.

  
_Lies._

  
Stinking, huge-ass lies your modest room cannot contain.

  
The question is so sudden that you do not dare move. The buzzing swells in your head, numbing tongue and heart. You are floating, existing on a base level. Your eyelids feel heavy.

  
They must have felt it too, for the one on her left touches his belt, reaching for the twenty-two.

  
It happens so suddenly, without noise.

  
As soon as he grabs it, the gun falls apart. Small metal shreds and pieces; like dirty glass, fall on the ground, in less then a second. The man is stunned, the other tries to jump on you, and you think: _keep your hands off me keep your hands off me keep your_ -

  
You sense the handcuffs they brought and try to convince the object to help you, but the two of them are on you and are _so_  strong. There is a sharp, stinging sensation that is doubled by the force by which they are holding you down.

  
You try to bite, and have no time to register the slap the graying agent gives you. You taste metal as blood spreads in your mouth. Something oh-so-familar.

  
The men look livid.

  
”You little cunt” Which of them says this, you do not know. Don't care. Your reflection in the mirror across seems to be a hazy glow, you are a halo with pain and some pride. The same furious, deep voice drags you back. ”Do you have any idea what your father did?

  
”My father is dead." you answer softly and think of ripping apart a plane with screams.

  
The all is in darkness.

 


End file.
